How to Lose a Formal Date in 10 Minutes
Friends, if there’s one thing I’ve gained from my obscenely expensive college education, it’s a keen sense of rejection and failure. Though this is mostly experienced in the classroom (EARS 002, you are a stone cold bitch, pun intended) and in the extracurricular realm (What do you mean I have to apply to help poor starving children?), this certainly also applies to my social life. As everyone knows, formal season is fast approaching, and although I do not get to attend one of my own (#freeKDE), I can still help you turn yours into a bona fide shitshow. Here are some tips to make sure that special someone leaves you alone for the rest of the night:
1. Before the big night, coordinate all your plans over InMail.
2. Wear your new House scarf as a tie.
3. When she asks what you’d like to drink at tails, politely request milk, and milk only.
4. Act confused and offended when he does not offer you a corsage.
5. Continuously mutter, “This is the big one” under your breath. When your date asks what you’re talking about, explain that “the big one” in this case means “the formal that will get you suspended.”
6. Whip out your phone and pull up your wedding dream board on Pinterest. Conspicuously scroll through. Ask your date their opinion on each choice.
7. During dinner, loudly complain about how you’d rather be at Applebee’s.
8. Brag about voting for Donald Trump.
9. Demand to be added to your date’s house GroupMe, then immediately spam it with memes.
10. Smash a window.
11. Smash all the windows. Who gives a damn?
12. Let one entire boob hang out of your dress and act like nothing is happening. If someone points it out to you, pretend you don’t know what they are talking about.
13. End every sentence with, “and them’s the facts.”
14. Show your date an eight-minute-long YouTube video and refuse to let him leave or look away until it’s completely over.
15. Call your mother with your date in earshot and loudly describe how great he is.
16. Call the police with your date in earshot and loudly describe how much underage drinking he’s engaging in.
17. Brag about shoplifting your dress.
18. Re-enact your favorite scene from “The Vagina Monologues” on the dance floor.
19. Confess to being the Zodiac killer.
20. Refuse to dance in any style other than the Macarena regardless of what song is playing.
21. Arrive to tails on a hoverboard.
22. If he tries to dance with you, angrily tell him to keep his moneymaker in his chinos and storm away.
23. Force your date to take 500 pictures with you, each with a slightly different pose. If he refuses to comply or ruins your #aesthetic, throw a tantrum.
24. Ask him to pop that pesky back pimple for you.
25. Grab a wet wipe, scrub her face down and redo her eyeliner for her.
26. Pack an entire block of Cabot cheese in your bag and eat it throughout the night.
27. Scream “I’M SO DRUUUUUNNNNKK!” every 30 seconds.
28. Tell your date your hourly rate is $100.
29. Beckon your date close. Direct her attention toward your pocket. Reveal that it is stuffed full of Foco cookies “in case she needs a pick-me-up.”
30. Refuse to sit anywhere other than on your date’s lap.
31. Talk about your weird rash that’s just starting to clear up.
32. Wear Crocs.
33. Bring your copy of Infinite Jest and read it aloud throughout the night. Let your date know that it’s not your first time, either.
34. Ask the DJ to play “Hotline Bling.” Immediately burst into tears when it starts playing and loudly talk about how Drake just gets you.
35. Snap a selfie with her and demand she make it her profile picture immediately while you watch.
36. Ask your date about that girl you saw in their profile picture from 2012. Who the hell is that, you goddamn cheater?!
37. Demand that your date show you their birth certificate.
38. Bring your laptop and work on that big final paper the entire night.
39. Log onto Tinder and ask your date for advice on whether to swipe left or right.
40. Bring a notebook. Write down everything your date says, nodding pensively.
41. Be yourself, you loser!
42. Get outrageously drunk and belligerent. (Just kidding, this has literally never dissuaded anyone in the past.)
